The culminating activity published in NASA's "Rockets" Educators Guide is the Project X-51 set of activities. This unit is built upon the design, construction and launch of a water bottle rocket made from a plastic two liter bottle and other craft materials. This is an excellent activity as designed, if water bottle rockets are age-appropriate for your students. The design of a water bottle rocket is much less forgiving than that of the paper High Pressure Rockets described on the home page. Paper High Pressure Rockets are also constructed more quickly and with simpler office materials easily obtained in most classrooms.
The use of the paper rockets not only scales the Project X-51 unit down for younger grades, it also permits more rapid test and modification cycles in the Engineering Design Process. A further scaling of this project may insert straw in straw or straw in paper rockets. The scaling for age appropriateness still provides a taste of the engineering design process, yet with fewer technical skills and material requirements.
Original NASA Rockets Educator Guide Project X-51 Unit for use with Water Bottle Rockets. Unit is complete for use with appropriate intermediate, middle and high school levels.
NASA Project X-51 Interdisciplinary Rocketry Unit
The culminating activity published in NASA's "Rockets" Educators Guide is the Project X-51 set of activities. This unit is built upon the design, construction and launch of a water bottle rocket made from a plastic two liter bottle and other craft materials. This is an excellent activity as designed, if water bottle rockets are age-appropriate for your students. The design of a water bottle rocket is much less forgiving than that of the paper High Pressure Rockets described on the home page. Paper High Pressure Rockets are also constructed more quickly and with simpler office materials easily obtained in most classrooms.
The use of the paper rockets not only scales the Project X-51 unit down for younger grades, it also permits more rapid test and modification cycles in the Engineering Design Process. A further scaling of this project may insert straw in straw or straw in paper rockets. The scaling for age appropriateness still provides a taste of the engineering design process, yet with fewer technical skills and material requirements.
Original NASA Rockets Educator Guide Project X-51 Unit for use with Water Bottle Rockets. Unit is complete for use with appropriate intermediate, middle and high school levels.
Resource Links:
NASA Elementary School Engineering Design PacketNASA's BEST (Beginning Engineering Science & Technology)
NASA Engineering Design Process for 5-12 Grades
Videos:
Design Engineering for Kids YouTube (I narrated this one while at NASA )